The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin

The book is organized chronologically beginning with the Ancients determining the passage of time and marking days and months and years. From "The Heavenly Empire" we move with expert control to measuring time and the invention of the clock and hours and a wristwatch?

Discoveries of the calendar and the clock are not the only discoveries chronicled in his book. We learn why the road to China initiated the introduction of machines and why it was necessary for China to be opened by the West. And that concluded Book One.

Book Two deals with discoveries of geographic areas and of map making. Were the Vikings tools of some unknown god? Were the Crusaders the same as Vikings advancing on foreign ground as if theirs and claiming another's country as if their right? Was Christopher Columbus merely a Viking with a Christian name? Were these discoveries and melding of people and places mankind's further rebellion against the unfortunate events following the destruction of The Tower of Babel? Actually, the information here is overwhelming!

We are calmed in Book Three because he deals with Nature. The world of physics and of chemistry and the concrete science of Biology is spread out in one sentence: "God said, Let Newton Be!" From measuring the molecules in an invisible dot to tackling evolution, we have a study of the mind in all its brilliant capabilities.

And, just so we are not left feeling to impressed with our achievements as cleaned up brutes on Earth, he ends his staggering work with Book Four which deals with Society in all of its confusing contexts.

The Discoverers should be taken along on a long eight month cruise around the world. One can stretch out on deck and read three pages a day and try to hurriedly conclude the book before disembarking. One would need no other book, guranteed!

And, I am not being glib in choosing an ocean voyage to fully become one with the discoverers. On page 260 one gets the full flavor of the depth of research found in the book. "...Magellan played his cards shrewdly. He married the daughter of an influential Portugese emigre who controlled the Spanish voyages to the Indes, and then secured the enthusiastic approval of Juan Rodriguez de Fonsica..." His knowledge of events and places and people is mind boggling. And, that is why, I suggest a long ocean voyage to become one with the discoverers.